When Was the First Volleyball World Cup?

The first FIVB Volleyball World Cup was the men’s tournament in Poland in 1965, won by the Soviet Union. The first women’s World Cup followed in Uruguay in 1973, also won by the Soviet Union. These were indoor volleyball competitions, not beach events. The inaugural hosts and medal positions appear in the FIVB’s competition records.

The first men’s and women’s tournaments

Competition	First edition	Host	Champion	Silver	Bronze
Men’s World Cup	1965	Poland	Soviet Union	Poland	Czechoslovakia
Women’s World Cup	1973	Uruguay	Soviet Union	Japan	South Korea

Source: FIVB Coaches Manual, Appendix 1, page 116.

Eleven national teams entered the first men’s edition. The Soviet Union won seven of its eight matches to take the title, according to the Olympics.com tournament history. That 7–1 record counts matches won and lost, not sets or scoreboard points.

The World Cup was introduced to fill the gap between volleyball’s World Championship and Olympic tournaments. Japan became the host for both World Cup competitions in 1977—so its long association with the event should not be mistaken for hosting the first edition. Olympics.com documents that sequence.

How to read scores from the first World Cups

Those early editions belonged to volleyball’s side-out scoring era: only the serving team could score a point, and sets were played to 15 rather than today’s usual 25. Winning a rally while receiving earned the serve, but did not add a scoreboard point. The FIVB’s scoring explanation describes the old system and its replacement by rally scoring.

Consider a hypothetical set tied at 10–10, with Team A serving:

• Team B wins the rally while receiving. Under side-out scoring, the score stays 10–10, but B takes the serve.
• B then wins the next rally on its own serve. The score becomes 11–10 to B.

Under modern rally scoring, B would score on both rallies and lead 12–10. The same two rally wins therefore produce different scoreboard movement.

That also means an old 15–10 set score records 25 awarded points, not necessarily 25 rallies. Rallies that merely transferred service are absent from that point total. A low-looking historical score does not, by itself, establish a short set.

Today’s standard FIVB indoor match is best of five: the first four sets are to 25 and a deciding fifth is to 15, always requiring a two-point margin. Every rally awards a point. See the FIVB basic rules and our guide to how volleyball scoring works.

World Cup versus World Championship

For historical records, the original World Cup and World Championship were separate competitions. Our 2014 volleyball tournament guide explains that distinction for another commonly confused year.

There is now a naming change to watch: from the 2027 edition, the World Championship will be called the FIVB Volleyball World Cup, following FIVB Board approval. That renamed championship does not change the original World Cup’s starting dates of 1965 for men and 1973 for women. The FIVB announcement specifies when the new name takes effect.